Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, we should seek the most comprehensive answer possible for our petitioner. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Petitioner No. P00035/22 concerns amending the Child Care Act 1991 to provide HIQA with the necessary powers to sanction Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, when it fails to meet its statutory obligations. The petitioner is Ms Anna Kavanagh, who states:

The Alliance of Birthmothers Campaigning for Justice (ABC) is requesting that the Committee initiate the necessary steps to amend the Child Care Act 1991 (as amended in 2011) to provide HIQA with powers to sanction Tusla when it fails to meet its statutory obligations. The Alliance of Birthmothers Campaigning for Justice (ABC) is Ireland’s leading advocacy group for Birthmothers whose children have been taken into state care by Tusla.

HIQA carries out inspections in each of Tusla’s 17 service areas. HIQA publishes the results of these inspections, the vast majority of which finds serious non-compliance in one or more standards inspected. HIQA does not have the power under the Child Care Act 1991 to sanction Tusla. The latest report published by HIQA, 8 June 2022, found the Cork service area which has 26% of the total child population of Ireland, was compliant in just two of twelve standards inspected.

The secretariat received a response from the Ombudsman for Children, dated 31 March 2024, in relation to the correspondence from the petitioner. There has been correspondence over and back, a lot of which has been between the secretariat, the petitioner and the different Departments. The recommendation is that the correspondence from HIQA be forwarded to the petitioner for comment with 14 days and that we agree on a suitable date to invite the group, as we previously agreed on 14 December 2023, to put its case to the committee and to the ombudsman thereafter. Do members have any views on this?